


go now, you are forgiven

by sabinelagrande



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Episode: e115 The Chapter Closes Spoilers, F/M, Future Fic, Having Faith, Religious Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 20:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12712725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: In the end, Percy doesn't have much of a choice in the matter.





	go now, you are forgiven

So Percy builds a clock. He doesn't build any more weapons, and he only repairs them when absolutely necessary. Whitestone grows around him, cultivated by his and Cassandra's and Vex's work. He thought peace would never again come to him, but here it is, just as he'd never let himself hope.

\--

He thinks sometimes about where he would start. In the best case scenario, he could bring perhaps three of his siblings back; it would bankrupt him, but he can live without money even if he can't make more. Would he start with Julius, strong and proud and more suited to rule than either Percy or Cassandra? Would he start with Ludwig instead, the only one who ever listened when Percy talked about his tinkering? Or perhaps Vesper, with her charm and her easy way with people? Surely Whitney and Oliver would have to be a set, and how could he choose between them? Should he put his parents first in line over all of them?

He comes to no answer, but the question keeps creeping back up on him, wiggling into his brain when he leaves it idle.

Even in his imagination he wouldn't bankrupt Whitestone to do it. Whitestone has more de Rolos, Vex and the twins and little Johanna Velora, and that's all Whitestone really needs, the de Rolos in general and not any de Rolos in specific. What's important for Whitestone is important to Percy, but he's always known that it's not necessarily true the other way around.

But he thinks about it anyway.

And it never quite leaves his mind that he knows where his family is. They were all followers of the Dawnfather; the degree of sincerity varied, but all of them could be counted among his worshippers. Percy cannot. Percy worships nothing. He doesn't know what will happen to him when he dies, but he knows he won't be joining them. It is a weight in his heart, but it is a done thing.

\--

Whitestone flourishes, and Percy is so satisfied that he doesn't know what to do with himself. There is an influx of ravens, but they feel like a comfort, even as they snatch shiny things left unattended by open windows.

He wants to close the Raven Queen's shrine, but it feels cruel. Percy doesn't want to be cruel anymore.

\--

Sometimes Percy thinks of the Knowing Mistress, of her stacks and rows and mountains of books, and of the way he never felt religious until that very moment, never felt in any way impressed by divinity until it could give him _that_ , the infinite intricately laid out and all at his fingertips. In that moment it would have been nothing to kneel, nothing to pledge himself, give himself whole to her care, her service. He felt such a longing then, so awed that he wished with everything in him that he could turn himself over to the Knowing Mistress, be hers.

And he didn't. 

Compared to Vex, the Knowing Mistress's realm is nothing. He has never loved anyone like he loves Vex; he has never loved anything like he loves Vex. Sometimes he doubts that he was even capable of the kind of love he has for her until after she came into his life.

Percy knows how her story ends; it will be much like her brother's, taken into a god's embrace. She is the Sixth Star, the mortal incarnation of the Dawnfather's will. She is bound for Elysium, and Percy doubts that there's much she could do to stop that. 

But will her tomb say "Beloved of Percival", or will it say "Champion of the Dawnfather"? 

With any luck, Percy will never know. With any luck, the seed of jealous resentment he feels for the god that took her from him will never flower.

\--

But when Vax decides to follow his uncle and apprentice at the temple of the Dawnfather, Percy pays for his vestments.

\--

And it comes to Percy slowly that he has no choice. He could give up so many things, but he can't give up Vex. He could have her and his family indefinitely if he could only find it in himself to pray, to do it genuinely and without hesitation. He has to learn to have faith, and he despairs of doing it. For faith is a thing you do not learn; faith is a thing you do, a constant effort. In Percy's case, it means an unceasing struggle against his very nature, his wild arrogance, his lack of true deference to anything, except Vex.

But if Percy is going to do this, he is not going to do it by half-measures. If he has to prove himself to the Dawnfather, he will do it as hard as he can.

Pike is an excellent tutor and his son helps, but the healing spells never come easily to Percy. Something blocks them, whether something in his very nature or the influence of his warlock pact, slight though it is.

But when Percy IV skins his knee, when Cassandra cuts her finger, Percy feels the Dawnfather over his shoulder, light flowing down his arm and sealing the wound.

And Percy wonders if believing in someone you've met is really faith at all.

\--

Percy grows old; his clock is finished, his children run the city, and he sinks into a blessed obsolescence, where he does nothing but read and write letters and tinker and spend time with his wife. He has defeated dragons and beholders and even a god, but this is the life he was meant for, not adventure. He thinks perhaps Vex was meant for more, but when she slips an arm around his waist and smiles, he sees nothing in it but the deepest contentment.

Perhaps this is the truest reward for a champion: a life blessed.

\--

Percy dies for the last time in the way he never expected; Vex is holding his hand as he lies in bed, too weak to do much but grasp at her fingers. She hasn't left his bedside in days, and the wisps of white in the hair that frames her face have come loose from her tight braid. She looks beautiful, radiant, and just before he shuts his eyes, they are filled with the sight of her.

"Go on, darling," he hears her say, voice soft and soothing. "I'm right behind you."

As it happens, death feels a lot like plane shifting this time, now that he has a destination. For one brief, terrifying moment, his progression stops, the icy chill of a claw raking down his back, but suddenly he is propelled forward and away from it in a burst of golden light. He sees the Divine Gate, the space between planes, and very suddenly, the Dawnfather's realm. He alights next to a fortress of gold, every square inch of it covered with intricate decoration.

The gate shifts open, and one of the guardians extends a hand.

"He waits," the planatar says, and Percy draws himself to his full height and walks inside.

It has been decades since Percy has seen the Dawnfather's domain, but it's still seared into Percy's memory, the delicate detailing, the massive scale. There are more planatars waiting at the doors to the Dawnfather's throne room, and the doors swing open, inviting Percy in.

When he enters the god's presence, Percy bows, the same regard he would pay to another noble, not the prostrate position a better follower would take. The Dawnfather doesn't seem to care about the possible slight; Percy thinks such a thing as incorrect deference is nothing to a god.

"Does everyone get this treatment?" Percy asks. The Dawnfather's visage is still nothing but a ball of light, but Percy squints up into it, refusing to show his weakness. He's stared down gods before, and he's not going to be cowed by one now, especially not the one he's gifted himself to.

"The ones who earn it," the Dawnfather says, and his face resolves from light into form, still radiant but almost human-like, his features reminding Percy of his grandfather.

"You must know what I want," Percy says. "You know why I came to follow you. My worship is conditional. You've always known that."

"The orchards need harvesting," the Dawnfather says, seemingly unconcerned.

"I want to see my family," Percy says, because he's not above spelling out what he wants to a deity.

"Where else would they be?" the Dawnfather replies.

And with his next breath Percy knows where to go, what to do. It's not so much that he knows now than that he has always known; he only needed to cast his mind in the right direction. He forgets to say anything to the Dawnfather as he leaves, but he gets the sense afterwards that it would have been unnecessary. All he knows or needs to know is where he is headed, out of the fortress and down a specific row of trees; it all seemed like so much vast orchard before, but now he can see its layout clearly in his mind, each tree differentiated. 

Vesper sees him first, looking up as she twists a piece of fruit on its stem so that it comes away in her hand. She smiles at him, but it's not the one he expected when he imagined this reunion. It is not a look of shock or a look of pain; it's the look you give someone you live with first thing in the morning, or a friend who has merely stepped out for a moment and returned. It feels right, and Percy feels no slight as she goes back to her task.

There is a space after Whitney, a whole tree that waits unplucked, and Percy steps into it, picking up the basket that sits on the ground. As he reaches up, he can see the leaves of the tree appearing as his arm loses its opacity, like his body is fading out.

He picks an apple, and he waits for Vex.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] go now, you are forgiven](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12734781) by [Jadesfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadesfire/pseuds/Jadesfire)




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